Nurses plan actions Sept. 1 to call for tax on Wall Street

National Nurses United, the nation’s largest nursing union, is sponsoring a variety of events, from soup kitchens to help feed the hungry and homeless, to community speak outs and street theater. Activities in Minnesota include an 11 a.m. question & answer session at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office in Woodbury, coffee shop conversations from 1 to 4 p.m. in Rep. John Kline’s district and street theatre at 5:30 p.m. at the Minnesota State Fair. View more details on the Minnesota Nurses Association website.

The RNs will be calling on Congress members to sign a pledge to “support a Wall Street transaction tax that will raise sufficient revenue to make Wall Street pay for the devastation it has caused on Main Street.” The visits follow a letter sent by certified mail to all 535 members of the House and Senate last week asking them to back the pledge and help “make the promise of the American dream… a reality.”

A tax on Wall Street trading of stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, credit default swaps, and futures – the very financial speculative activity linked to the 2008 financial meltdown and resultant recession – could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the programs that “are desperately needed to reduce the pain and suffering felt by so many families who feel abandoned in communities across this nation,” said NNU Co-President Deborah Burger, RN.

NNU, the nation’s largest union and professional association of nurses, has convened numerous other protests in recent months joined by labor and community activists, including in Washington DC, outside the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and in New York City, across from the Stock Exchange, to advance this campaign.

“America’s nurses see every day the broad declines in health and living standards that are a direct result of patients and families struggling with lack of jobs, un-payable medical bills, hunger and homelessness. We know where to find the resources to bring them hope and real solutions,” said NNU Co-president Karen Higgins, RN.

“It’s time for Wall Street financiers, who created this crisis and continue to hold so much of the nation’s wealth, to start contributing to rebuild this country, and for the American people to reclaim our future,” says NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

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